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Monet

Rousseau


Yo Picasso
By Robert Brown

This dynamic sketch was a landmark for the young Picasso, intent on making his name in the Paris art world.

The 19-year-old Picasso left Barcelona in the summer of 1901 for his second visit to Paris, full of confidence and eager to prepare for his first one-man exhibition which, through his friend and dealer Pere Mañach, was to take place in Ambrose Vollard's prestigious gallery on the rue Lafitte.

In preparation for this important show Picasso threw himself into a frenzy of activity, painting a wide range of subjects that he hoped would establish him as a rising young star and an important painter of modern life. As this outstanding work testifies, at some point during this extremely hectic period for the artist Picasso must have reached for the nearest available blank surface, and attempted to capture the essence of the portrait with which he would announce himself at the Vollard exhibition: the self-portrait he later proudly in scribed, Yo Picasso. ('I, Picasso').

This outstanding study marks the beginning of the emergence within Picasso's work of his own powerful an innovative personality. Within six months, the joy and confidence of his earlier virtuoso style of painting would be reduced to the stark monochromes and flat texture of his blue period. This sketch for Yo Picasso therefore begins the dramatic journey of self-discovery that led to those psychologically intense and emotively powerful paintings.

Yo Picasso was more inventive and more serious in its intention than any other work in the historic exhibition. The first work listed in the exhibition catalogue, it was clearly conceived as a presentation piece to announce Picasso's arrival on the world stage. Executed in June 1901, Yo Picasso is the first of that year's three self-portraits and shows Picasso viewing himself with pride and confidence. It asserts the name Picasso had chosen to use, not the paternal name of Ruiz that he had finally abandoned only the year before. 'Have you ever noticed that there is a double s in Matisse, in Poussin, in Rousseau?' the young artist had once remarked to the dismay of his uncle, Salvador Ruiz.

His second self-portrait of 1901 presents an altogether different image - a hallucinatory, Munch-like Picasso illuminated from below. The third was the first blue-period self-portrait, and clearly illustrates the decline in Picasso's mental state during the later half of 1901, presenting an alienated and bearded refugee lost in an infinite sea of blue.

Prophetically, Yo Picasso is the first of Picasso's self-portraits to make dramatic use of the artist's powerful eyes. This, perhaps, leads to the psychological depth explored in his two other 1901 self-portraits. With hindsight it is easy to see how the innovation employed in this highly personal painting set him on his path towards the Blue period.

Following a compositional tradition established by the greatest artists, including Titian, Rubens and Poussin, Yo Picasso shows the artist seated before his easel. Dressed in the garish and slightly eccentric orange scarf he favored at the time and a brilliant white shirt - both of which clash magnificently with the vibrant blue background - Picasso glances out of the painting with a look of confident mastery.

In this rare full-length pastel sketch for the painting, the strong modeling of the head and its self-assured look are almost identical to the finished work. Picasso wears the same clothes and his first intimations of the background color are suggested by a broad use of brilliant yellow pastel. There are hints of the blue Picasso would ultimately use in the outlining of his shirt and along the waistline. Indeed, in the loose working of the artist's leg and in the blurring of dark pastel in the lower half it is tempting to see Picasso already considering the half-length format of the final oil version.

Perhaps most striking about this work, however, is the artist's extraordinary ability to capture, in the more immediate medium of pastels, the very same intensity of the stare and look of determined self-confidence that so distinguishes the final painting. Anticipating the oil, the assured execution of this work displays a bravura that rivals his later brushwork, establishing this exquisite sketch as one of the most important documents from the early career of the young Spanish artist who wished the world to know him by the single name: Picasso.

Robert Brown is a researcher for the Impressionist and Modern Department.

Inquiries:
Jussi Pylkkänen
Tel: 44 (0)20 7389 2452
Olivier Camu
Tel: 44 (0)20 7389 2450


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